by Jessie Trudeau & Ross Trudeau

[.puz][PDF][Solution] Difficulty: 3.5/5

I don’t tend to send out accompanying subscriber emails when I post midweek content, so a couple of quick ICYMIs.

On Thursday I shared a grid called “Labor Shortage” in support of The New York Times Guild, whose members asked NYT Games subscribers to log off during their one-day walk-out on Thursday. And this past Tuesday my most recent NYT grid–a collaboration with Wyna Liu–went to print. Give it a solve if you haven’t already!

On to new business! This week’s grid is a collaboration with my beloved first wife, pictured below. Our thanks to this week’s test solvers Moose, Gavin, Jill and Morn11. Thoughts and spoilers on “Alphanumerics” below.

Okay, so, Bingo diehards will note that on a traditional Bingo card, certain letters are associated with certain number spreads (1-15, 16-30, etc.) — our apologies for coloring a bit outside the lines here. I think it’s worth it. This one’s also going to live and die with whether or not the solver’s brain can roll with written-out numbers in a grid. Personally I don’t hitch at all, but I know a couple people for whom the mind recoils. It’s like cruciverbal cilantro.

We were pretty psyched when it turned out there was enough identifiable B-[#0-75], I-[#0-75] etc. material to make this work with loosened # restrictions. The limiting factor was definitely the 0 + number answer, with only 0-TWO LEVELS (and variations) and, like, O-TWO ARENA. We also built out a grid (below) that kept the B, I, N, G, O in order (via adding the FREE square in the middle of a bingo card). But that eventually felt unnecessary, since you rarely get your squares in order in a game of bingo anyway

Happy solving, friends!

-R+J